Entranced by the football, most armchair viewers of this tournament are
probably also appalled by the violence, racism, homophobia and nationalism.

As Uefa handed down its first fine – to Russia – Euro 2012 was like a chorus line desperately high-kicking and grinning away to divert attention from the crashes and bangs offstage.

At the end of another gruelling club season just about every team have stretched soul and sinew to make this European Championship more than a holiday-delaying encumbrance. The fear that Champions League glamour is killing the international game has receded as players display fierce pride in the shirt. Each evening brings a two-fixture tide of pleasure as the 16-team format affirms Uefa’s folly in diluting the quality with 24 contestants from 2016.

Wednesday’s second Group B games were another hoot: Cristiano Ronaldo missing a one-on-one with the goalkeeper while Nicklas Bendtner — he of the iron self-regard — scored twice for Denmark before the substitute Silvestre Varela settled it for Portugal with a smashed late winner. Holland-Germany, that entertaining old feud, was still to come.

Few can remember a more compelling start to an international tournament.

Tight games, spectacular goals and a wide spectrum of tactical strategies have electrified the host countries; especially Poland, the more westernised of the two. Ukraine still has recidivist Soviet tendencies while Poland recalls with disgust its forced subservience to Moscow.

Yet as the number of arrests from Tuesday night’s Poland-Russia clash in Warsaw rose towards 200, Uefa fined the Russian federation €120,000 (about £97,000) and imposed a suspended six-point deduction for the Euro 2016 qualifying campaign in response to the fighting in last week’s game against the Czechs; and gay rights groups condemned Italy’s Antonio Cassano for his feeble PR-driven apology after he said he hoped there were “no homosexuals” in his team.

Uefa is also investigating two cases of alleged racial abuse. Dutch players claim they heard racist chanting at a training session in Krakow last week and the Czech Republic’s only black player, Theodor Gebre Selassie, says he “noticed” racist abuse in the match against Russia. But here is an important detail. These offences are not confined to the East, where societies tend to be mono-ethnic.

Thomas Herzog, a spokesman for the Football Supporters Europe Fans’ Embassy team for Spanish supporters, says that around “200 supporters started monkey chants when the Italian player Mario Balotelli touched the ball.

“We’re glad to report that the majority of Spanish supporters reacted in a very positive way, because many of them tried to intervene very quickly and stop the fans in question from singing,” Herzog said.

“We are angry about this small section of Spanish supporters showing this kind of racist behaviour. But we have to stress that most of the Spanish supporters were very aware of this issue and tried their best to intervene.”

Balotelli’s pre-tournament threat to leave the field has not been followed through because he was not aware of any racial hostility. Already, though, black players have been subjected to shameful and dehumanising treatment at a sporting event. No civilised observer can watch this championship without trepidation about what the next fixture may bring.

Uefa’s first punishment was meted out for fighting rather than racism.Perhaps they should fine themselves for staging Poland v Russia on Russia Day – a nationalist festival that was bound to provoke Poles who watched Russians march to Warsaw’s National Stadium. Also baffling is why the authorities allowed visiting fans to unfurl a huge aggressive banner proclaiming ‘This is Russia [ie Poland is Russia]’, complete with dagger.

Predictably, the head of Russia’s Football Union, Sergei Fursenko, blamed Poles for Tuesday’s mayhem. “Polish ultras are known for their disobedience,” he said. And while 157 of the 184 arrested were Polish, the portents for Russia’s staging of the 2018 World Cup are not good. There is no sign of Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin intervening. Either he has no control over football-related chauvinism or he is content for his country to present a belligerent face to the world.

A statement from Michel Platini’s organisation on the Warsaw violence was one of generalised condemnation. “Uefa is determined that the overwhelmingly peaceful and festive atmosphere that has so far pervaded at Uefa Euro 2012 will be continued right up to and including the final in Kiev on Sunday 1 July,” it said, days after the organisers wrote to the mayors of all host cities asking them to increase the police presence at training grounds.

Many watching from afar will exult in the high standard of the action while feeling that Poland and Ukraine were simply not ready to stage this carnival. But neither country will want lectures from England, whose fans tore up Marseille in 1998 and Charleroi and other Belgian towns at Euro 2000. The nationalism and nihilism of those times remains vivid in the memory. English hooliganism was excised by banning orders and pre-emptive policing so that now the England team leave tournaments without an accompanying burden of shame.

Whatever Uefa’s motives for opening up this new ‘frontier’ (money and power, mainly), there is no use condemning Poland and Ukraine as pariah states when the vast majority of people here just want to watch the games and meet other nationalities. The answer is to isolate the malevolence of racists and thugs and unite against it, with fierce sanction and interventionist policing of the sort we see in Premier League grounds.

It would help if Uefa stopped slapping wrists with feather-dusters, and the governments of Russia and Ukraine especially stamped on sociopathic activity. In the meantime the entertainers are doing their bit: Andrei Shevchenko (Ukraine), Jakub Blaszczykowski (Poland’s scorer against Russia) and Alan Dzagoev (Russia). There is drama, unpredictability and a challenge to the old order as footballing cathedrals rise in the east.